Loved using the Monteverde Crystal Demonstrator over the past few weeks but now it’s time for a new pen. Random.org says it is my Manuscript pen in black! I first introduced this pen on the blog in November of 2013 in this post. I have no idea where that other nib might be….Oh well I will clean this beauty and start using it! I’m excited; I’ve missed using this one. The pen for August will be chosen on July 29. Purchases: I bought a dashboard, diary inserts and sticky notes from Mrs. Brimbles and they were shipped today. I will review them when a) the dashboard and sticky notes arrive and b) I figure out how to print the inserts (they were sent in a digital download instantly). Some points covered this week in my journals:

Saw the movie Kingsman – wow what a film. True James Bond spy stuff. I loved the style and the feel, and especially the code names being Knights of the Round Table. The best part for me was Harry Hart (or Galahad, played by Colin Firth) introducing Lee (played by Taron Egerton) to the Bond-like gadgets: the lighter that is actually a hand grenade, the bullet-proof umbrella that is also a gun, the FOUNTAIN PEN that is actually a poison dispenser. Mrporter.com were selling Kingsman swag at the time of release, but I just checked and the fountain pen (a Conway Stewart) is sold out and will not be restocked.

Discovered our beloved willow tree has worms. Again. Poor David will have to spray the tree. And Dad and I will pull off as many wormy leaves as we can. Fun.

A co-worker purchased one of the 2015-2016 Erin Condren Life Planners. They are really beautiful and incredibly well made and I was tempted to buy one myself. But I’m still using my Pocket Finsbury (imagine that!) and I really do love it. So instead I think I might purchase one of the Erin Condren notebooks; you can check them out here.

I laughed out loud at this post on From The Pen Cup. I love Mary’s “notebook purchasing exception clause” because I invoke it every chance I get! Continue reading for an excellent review of the Living Well One Line a Day journal.

Azizah at Gourmet Pens has beautiful handwriting and it is showcased beautifully in her review of the Manuscript Master Italic Calligraphy Pen. I enjoy this brand and I think the pen is gorgeous. Azizah points out the pros and cons and I find myself wanting to buy this pen. But I will resist. For now.

Have you ever hit the Random button on the journalporn tumblr? I have, and do frequently. I could sit and look at other people’s journals forever……

I had a lot of fun with these purchases at Scottsdale Pen and Knife. The Monteverde Artista was a complete impulse buy. I had seen a couple of reviews and I’ve been wanting a demonstrator model for a while now. And when I held it I had to have it.

The nib is different from my Prima pens; instead of a stylized mountain range we have curlicues. The section is smooth which looks great but I had extreme difficulty untwisting the section from the rest of the pen so I could ink it up. I had to ask David to help me.

I decided to go with Monteverde Green because it’s a beautiful colour. Here you can see the ink in the barrel.

Here’s a close up of the feed, which is normally clear.

It’s a wonderful writer and very pleasing in the hand. It started up almost instantly (not as instantly as the Metropolitan) and I didn’t mind the smooth section, although I found my fingers grasping above the section naturally, even though with other pens I grasp the section further down. Must be a reaction to the smoothness.

Moving on to the folding magnifier. I bought one of these on the advice of SBRE Brown in one of his videos. I wanted to be able to see the super small writing on some of the nibs. And it was a bargain – I think it was under $5.

The second pen I bought is the Pilot Plumix. I was intrigued by the shape of the pen. To me it looks like George Jetson would be using this thing.

And here it is with the cap off. The cap unscrews and posts tightly. It has two fins on either side to prevent rolling off the edge of the desk.

Here’s the writing sample. You can see how it has more of a stub nib. It makes for elegant handwriting; I’ve signed all of the Christmas cards with this pen so far. It’s more palatable than my Manuscript pen; I love it and will probably get another one as they are not expensive. I believe I paid $10 but JetPens has them for $7.25. They come in black and blue as well. I put the blue cartridge in this purple one by mistake; I like my barrels to match my ink but I chose the blue cartridge instead of the purple one. The cartridges are the Pilot Mixable Colour. One of the big draws about this pen is the huge ink capacity the pen would have once it is made into an eyedropper, which is easily done as the pen is all plastic. Might have to make that conversion.

And lastly (for the pen purchases) I picked up two Plantinum Preppy pens. Everyone raves about what a great value they are (usually less than $5) so I’ve been wanting to try them for a while. I must say I was not as impressed as I wanted to be. I enjoy the colour matching going on, with the nib colour matching the clip/cap colour, but the ink seemed dry and I found the pen skipped a fair bit.

The ink colour is a great shade of green. They are also candidates for making into an eyedropper pen.

Here is the Rhodia Orange Leather Notebook Cover. I love my notebook covers and couldn’t resist this. The leather is very soft and smells wonderful. I chose the orange because it is just so striking.

The holder comes with a pad and a pen loop. The pen loop is super snug so I had to resort to clipping the pen onto it. I didn’t realize at first that the pad I chose had graph paper; I prefer lined. But no matter. It’s such beautiful paper it will get used!

So that’s it for my visit to Scottsdale Pen and Knife. I’m sure it won’t be my last!

Total number of notebooks/pens/ink bought since self-imposed spending freeze (Jan 1/14): 23

1 pen + 1 bottle of ink = 2 items in a gift set on Jan 14

1 bottle of KoninginneNach-Blauw from Akkerman on Feb 5

1 Visconti Rembrandt Calligraphy set in Red = 2 items (pen and ink bottle) from Goldspot on May 15

1 bottle of J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche from Goldspot on May 15

1 bottle of De Atramentis Heather Violet from Goldspot on May 15

5 pens, 4 notebooks, 3 tins of ink cartridges from Reid’s on June 14

1 Jinhao X450 from ebay; received on June 19

1 bottle of De Atramentis William Shakespeare ink from Goulet Pens; received on June 25

1 Winnable Leather Notebook on July 10

1 Wreck This Journal on Aug 2

Some topics covered this week:

Is it just me or is the world becoming a colder and ruder place? I had two encounters with SUPER rude people this week with the ultimate result of making me incredibly sad that such behaviour exists. I won’t go into details but good manners elevate us as human beings so what do you say, let’s try them out? Thank you.

Patiently waiting for word from Wonderpens.ca that my Monteverde Prima in Purple is in! Then I’m going on a little spending spree so I can take advantage of their free shipping on orders over $100.

I’ve been doing some research and most of the birds invading my garden these days for the bird seed buffet are House Sparrows. Halley and I love watching them but it seems they are considered a bit of a pest in most areas. Oh well I like them, and Halley loves her bird tv.

A friend told me she is using a journal I gave her last Christmas to record the beautiful moments in her life; she’s writing so much her hand is cramping! I’m so incredibly happy for her, because she deserves a bucket load of beautiful. 🙂

Remember my Akkerman ink? Back in March I posted about filling my Manuscript Pen with Akkerman ink and how well it performed after that fill. Well I haven’t used that pen in a long time, maybe even since that fill, and this week I unscrewed the cap and wow, there was no hard starting and no skipping. And that pen used to jam on me all the time with the original ink. Just another reason to love Akkerman ink.

I can’t remember if I mentioned we had the gift of graffiti presented to us on the back side of our fence. I phoned the City’s graffiti removal program and it took them less than a week to remove it! We couldn’t believe it. Well done City of Calgary.

My husband and I were talking about the passions that define us. We agreed that when you wake up in the morning and you can’t wait to do a certain thing, that’s your passion. I read that somewhere and it’s so true. I wake up anxious to get into my journal. He wakes up anxious to get into his studio and make music. If only we didn’t have to go to work!

I wanted to share with you the last of my Christmas journals. A good friend gave me this Butterfly Journal from Fringe Paper Goods.

I call it the Butterfly Journal but I think it’s actually called Three Maps (that’s what is on the barcode on the back). And you can see why – inside each of the butterflies and inside the actual journal are beautiful maps.

I think it’s a US map; I see Trinity and National and various names of creeks and ridges. I could Google the names I suppose.

And the same map is on the back cover, with a pocket.

The paper feels great; not sure what the weight is. I will do an ink test when I’m moving into the notebook.

The back cover. Really beautiful notebook!

Sorry to jump around, but I also wanted to get into my Akkerman ink, which I mentioned here. Lots of folks have been asking if I’ve inked up any pens with it yet, and yesterday I did, and here are the pictures!

So I wanted to put the Akkerman blue ink into my blue Hero 6021. Before I could do that I had to empty the blue Hero and clean it. This was my first time and I followed the instructions from Goulet Pens. Above is the Hero in distilled water. I moved the plunger up and down until the water within the pen was clear.

I also emptied my Manuscript pen. I wanted to ink them both up with the Akkerman ink because they have very different nibs.

Aren’t the ink swirls beautiful?

Once the water within the pen is clear you wipe off the pen with a tissue or paper towel. There could still be some ink in the feed but that’s ok. Above is my Manuscript pen disassembled and drying. I did the same with the Hero.

So then the next step was to fill the pens with the Akkerman ink.

I turned the Akkerman bottle over to fill the reservoir. Above is a picture of the bottle with the cap removed. You can see there is a good amount of ink in there. It’s almost to the top of the rim of the bottle.

Then I plunged the pen into the top of the bottle until I hit the marble. I drew the plunger up and the ink flowed into it.

I wiped the pens off and put them back together again.

And then I started writing in my Rhodia notebook.

The Hero 6021 is very fine and on the dry side. The Manuscript pen has an italic nib and is much more wet. You can really see the ink colour with the Manuscript pen.

Stormy sky indeed! And I’m thrilled with how the Manuscript pen is performing, now that it’s been cleaned and I have moved to the converter as opposed to the cartridge. It used to be a super slow starter but over the last two days I have had no trouble with it whatsoever. Could be the cleaning, could be the ink (although previously the ink was J. Herbin Perle Noire and I’ve never had problems with it), or could be the change to the converter. Whatever the reason it’s a different pen. And I LOVE the ink colour!

In honour of Fountain Pen Day just passed, I thought I would do a post on my pen collection. By my count I have done over 40 posts under the category of My Journal Collection, but only 3 under My Pen Collection. So this is long overdue.

Over the summer I purchased a J. Herbin Rollerball with a clear case. It was around $10 and I love it. Truth be told, I fell in love with the J. Herbin ink tins first, and fell in love with the pen later, probably due in large part to having something to use the inks in!

I have used the Lie de The ink and the Terre de Feu ink in it so far. Slight difference in the shade of brown between the two inks. It writes beautifully and you can get yourself one from Goulet Pens.

The pen takes any short international cartridge but I prefer the J. Herbin inks it was designed for.

An overview of the inks available from J. Herbin. I want to collect all 30! Each colour is also available in a bottle.

My collection. Only 25 to go!

My local stationer’s display of J. Herbin tins. This store also sold me my second fountain pen: the ONLINE College City Colors fountain pen in black, with a medium nib. It sold for $13.

The store display for the German company ONLINE. It comes in lots of great colour combinations and they even have a special edition for lefties.

I didn’t think I would like a medium nib (my Lamy has a fine nib) but I quite like it. The pen is unbelievably light (made of plastic after all) and a real joy to use. They take all international cartridges.

I tried to get a good close-up of the nib but there are too many shadows. You can just see the hint of blue from the ink it is loaded with (Bleu Pervenche for J. Herbin).

It also takes international cartridges but comes with a converter so I can put bottled ink in it. Fantastic features for such a low price point. The ink did take a bit of coaxing to flow and it is slow to start each time I start a new writing session. But other than that a really great pen. And I can purchase other calligraphy nibs from their UK website for about $5 each plus shipping.

Manuscript also has this neat service where if you are left-handed you can ship the nibs that came in the package to them, along with the cost of return postage, and they will ship the corresponding left-handed nibs to you. Awesome company.

And finally some writing samples. It’s crazy how the black ink of the Manuscript pen jumps off the page.

Hope you enjoyed this pen tour as much as I did. 🙂

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